NicoleCastle: "...but shouldn't we be trying to reduce that margin of error and fix the process so that it works even more of the time?" Yes, exactly; absolutely precisely right. And, we are.

"...to prevent it from happening again." No, not "prevent": deter. Render even more unlikely. If the First Amendment were repealed---God forbid---the first words I would ban from speech are, "We must make sure that this [meaning, whatever] *can never happen again*." That's what I mean by Gnosticism. *Anything* can Happen Again; and to acknowledge this human imperfection is *NOT* to endorse complacency.

"There was a national plan, sort of, and that REALLY wasn't followed." No, it wasn't; and a good thing, too. The national Constitutional plan is that when the Electoral College fails to select a President by absolute-majority vote by a certain deadline, the US House of Representatives shall do so: with **each state having one vote**. How that one vote is determined, it doesn't say. Chaos. You want malapportionment? I got yer malapportionment right heeeah! California one vote; South Dakota one vote. / The 50-50 Senate would select the VP btw. Whether CT's Saint Joe Lieberman could have voted, it doesn't say. :) Yes, the Supreme Court decision was questionable, at best: but better than that National Plan, sez I. (You gotta understand: legally, the United States of America has *no such thing* as a "National Election". It is 51 (D.C., remember) separate state elections. Yell & scream all you want: that *is* what it is. You wanna change it, amend the Constitution. That *only* takes approval by three-quarters of the states. HA!)

"Make the voting machines look like ATMs and stick 'em outside banks." NC, they weren't outside banks; but the "new" touch-screen machines, in FLA and elsewhere, *are* like ATMs, essentially. (They aren't actually new, they've been kicking around for years; but nevermind about that now.) BTW, ever find a mistake on your ATM receipt? No? Some have, I believe. / I'll accept banks as polling places, if you like. But some 'Catters will then start hollering about Bush's Enron or some such damn thing, aah guarr-onn-*tee*.

"....certain groups ARE being systematically disenfranchised by the process." Yes; and that too is being addressed. See CT Senator Chris Dodd's federal legislative proposals. BUT also (again - and please forgive this cold "P.-inC." truth): certain groups need to pay more attention to their own individual members' responsibility to do things like notifying registration offcials when they move; responding to periodic official voter-canvass mailings; meeting registration deadlines; re-registering when felony penalties have been satisfied; etc. Not everything can be taken care of automatically. (Actually, *nothing* can be taken care of "automatically". Think about it.)

Yours for elections which asymptotically approach perfection,

--Pook